Study Shows Big Opportunity For Content Marketing

Once upon a time, people got their news around the campfire. Centuries later, they got it from the morning paper. Then they got it from radio and then TV.

And now we get it everywhere – online, on our phones, on tablets, anytime, anywhere we want.

That’s obviously not news. You know that.

But those are just the delivery devices. The actual news generators have also changed. And that’s the opportunity for most businesses. Because people are looking online for news; a study by AYTM Research shows that 75.9 percent of people look for news online. And that means they’re look for work-related news and information online.

Think about your own workday – have a business-related question? Hit up Google. Looking to figure out how others have tackled a challenge – you go to trusted sources you’ve visited before.

As a marketer, if you’re smart, you realize that being the organization that delivers the answers to those questions puts you in Position A.

And so, smart brands are becoming publishers. Because of the way technology has changed, and the way marketing has changed, marketers are now engaging prospects and customers directly. It’s within your grasp to become a go-to media source for your industry. If you adopt a journalistic mindset and commit to a content strategy, you can completely change your relationship with prospects and customers. You can take it from schlocky sales pitches to trust-based engagement.

News content marketing – covering the trends and happenings in your industry and steering away from your brand-oriented messages – is the way to begin to create a relationship with your audience. And not just begin the relationship, but nurture it and make it grow stronger.

Interestingly, the AYTM survey is focused on news magazines such as Time and Newsweek. Forty-one-point-three percent of the respondents said they like magazines for in-depth articles. Another 52.8 percent like magazines because they offer news and information they can’t find anywhere else. And yet, the news magazine business is about to go over a cliff; Newsweek just announced that it will no longer offer a print version, starting in 2013. Their troubles are not driven by a lack of interest in their product; it’s driven by their historic business model, which has become less and less viable.

The people and organizations that purchase your products and services will always want information, whether it comes from news magazines or not. Assuming that you build your marketing strategy on content, but not your entire business model, you can serve your industry with the information it needs. You can position your organization as a thought leader. You can provide needed niche industry news that drives traffic to your website, and has the added bonus of populating your sales funnel.

If you do it the right way, over time, your organization can even become indispensable to the people you want to know and trust you. Indispensable! That’s a pretty good position to be in.